Basque War Tax Resisters Victims of Their Own Success

Military Spending

One of the new elements of the campaign against payment of taxes destined for military spending this year is a workshop in which those interested can make out their return on their own.

The number of people who resist taxes for military spending rises every year
in the Basque Country. The Eragozpen
Fiskala-Objeción Fiscal platform has accounted for at
least as many disobedient tax returns as last
year with almost a month still to go before the tax filing season ends.
This is the third year that
offices
have been established in
three
Basque capitals to help people not to collaborate with the State’s war
taxes.

“It reminds me of the assemblies [permanencias], during draft
resistance [insumisión],” says Idoia Aldazabal about her
experience in the Bilbao office. Then, the antimilitarist movement was focused
on stopping mandatory military service. The objectors refused to take part,
disobeying the laws. For one or two days a week, they met in some location to
share their doubts, talk with other people about civil disobedience, give
support, etc.
“It’s a way to do politics, in a sense of togetherness, of welcome,” explained
this activist.

This year at least two people are preparing
returns each weekend in the office, and they have nearly all shifts filled
through the end of June. “We are, as
they say, victims of our own success,” jokes Miguel Martínez, also a
KEM-MOC activist.
For the year to come one of the challenges facing
the campaign is to meet the need for help from all the people who have been
interested.

To meet this need, for the first time this year,
a workshop was held in which the participants, with the help of one person,
made out their own tax return including tax resistance. “This is more
empowering and more participatory,” explained Martínez, who notes that the
objective is for the people to become capable of resisting on their own, in
order to free up the office so it can bring in new people. “If in the future
10,000 people do tax resistance in the Basque Country and we finish off the
military, we won’t be able to attend to all of them,” he says with some
wishful thinking.

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